Apple CEO Tim Cook set to confer with Bharti Airtel on device distribution, meet business leaders

The Apple brass believes India’s widening 4G network will not only boost iPhone sales as more subscribers get on board, but also that of iPads and Apple TV.Writankar Mukherjee, Gulveen Aulakh&Ravi Teja Sharma | ET Bureau | Updated: May 18, 2016, 13:24 IST

KOLKATA | NEW DELHI: Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and his team will hold discussions with top telcos for forging partnerships for the distribution and sale of devices besides meeting business leaders and politicians.

The Apple brass believes India’s widening 4G network will not only boost iPhone sales as more subscribers get on board, but also that of iPads and Apple TV.

Cook has said the advent of high-speed 4G networks in India will expand the market for iPhones, flagging elsewhere, making it a key market for the company.

A senior Bharti Airtel executive said the telco was in talks with Apple for a broader strategic tieup, which may include options such as distribution or selling through retail stores, offers on devices and even training of personnel. The companies will pick what works best for India out of several proposals, he said without giving details.

A senior Reliance executive said that while bundling of Apple products was an option, the two could examine using Reliance Retail’s distribution for expanding into newer markets in sync with the rollout of Jio’s 4G services.

Reliance Retail has already set up its distribution network for 4G handsets in more than 1.2 lakh outlets. These sell its own Lyf devices as well those made by Lenovo, LG and Micromax.

“The distribution network will purely focus on 4G devices to push adoption of 4G services, which is of interest to Apple since currently it reaches around 10,000-odd outlets and it wants to make deeper inroads in India along with the services,” said the executive.

While in Mumbai, Cook is expected to discuss the potential for developing iOS applications in India, and may launch an accelerator for iOS developers. There was no response to emails sent to Apple and Reliance.

Cook, who was scheduled to land in Mumbai late Tuesday, will be in the country for most of the week, and will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

After a day in Mumbai, Cook will be in Hyderabad on May 19, meeting the Telangana CM and its Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao, besides visiting the location of the company’s upcoming technology development centre, which should be ready by early 2017.

The CEO then proceeds to Delhi for the final leg of his trip that has put the spotlight on India, the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world that could shortly become the second-largest, surpassing the US and behind China.

Cook has said iPhone sales will significantly improve in India once high-speed 4G networks gain traction across the country. He had said the smartphones selling in India are mostly “low end” due to the existing networks and market economics.

“The thing that (has) held not only us back, perhaps but some others as well, is that the LTE rollout in India just really began this year, and so we’ll begin to see some really good networks coming on in India,” Cook had said in a conference call last month.

“That will unleash the power and capability of the iPhone in a way that an older network, a 2.5G, or even some 3G networks, would not do.”

India’s top telcos Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are extending 4G networks across the country ahead of Jio’s launch.

Vodafone and Bharti Airtel have bundled offers on iPhones and they typically launch new plans when new models come out. The carriers offer data plans bundled with new phones so that the overall cost comes down for the end-user. Bharti Airtel also sells some iPhone models at its retail stores across the country.

Apple currently has around 3% volume share of the Indian smartphone market while by value it is around 11%, according to Counterpoint Research. However, in the premium segment or handsets priced over Rs 30,000, both Samsung and Apple are neck and neck, together accounting for more than 95% of the segment.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) pulled up Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for warning subscribers of certain plans that their SIM cards would be deactivated if they do not recharge their pre-paid accounts though these subscribers had the minimum required balance.